


Sanguivore

by MetellaStella



Category: The Dragon Prince (Cartoon)
Genre: Alien Biology, Alien Culture, Worldbuilding, Worldbuilding is my anti-drug
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-29
Updated: 2019-03-29
Packaged: 2019-12-26 02:08:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,291
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18273638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MetellaStella/pseuds/MetellaStella
Summary: "We heard that elves drink blood.""And what exactly is wrong with that?"





	Sanguivore

**_Author’s Notes:_  ** _I was SUPER stoked to see the head writer of Avatar: The Last Airbender working on another fantasy series! This is the only plotbunny I've spawned so far, but I hope more come. Also can't wait for the Mike and Bryan directed live action adaption on Netflix. Does anyone have any good Korra fanfic recommendations? I should work on my Avatar stories too D:_  
  
_I’m not going to overly abuse the ‘writing in an accent’ for clarity’s sake, but man English has such non-uniform phonetics anyway that it almost deserves to be mauled. Going to use it more as bookends. Or perhaps emphasis?_

_In which elves are not just barely cosmetically different and arbitrarily super-powered, but actually xenomorphic and that’s the reason for aforementioned powers. Also, I’m inserting an analog of Genghis Khan into this world, and all mentions of species are real-world animals. M’kay?  
_

* * *

“Three species of birds are blood drienkers,” she said in a flat tone. “Don’t yeh know that in yer own history there was a human who drank the blood of his horses for sustenance in a pinch while out conquering?”

The two boys simply sat there, open mouthed and gaping like fish.

Speaking of which. “There’s a blood eating catfish, too.”

This was a mistake, she thought to herself. She should have denied it. No matter how well she explained this mundane truth, the looks she was getting from the princes told her that this would be an uphill battle. She _needed_ their trust.

Oh well. She was already committed.

She swished the red liquid in the vial. “This isn’t blood. But if it were, it’d stave off your hunger for a little longer,” she went on, businesslike. “Now, if you drank _too much_ you would throw up from the sheer amount of iron,” she added as an afterthought.

 **_Shoot._ **Why did she say that. Way to make it sound more gross.

Perhaps a more friendly angle. “We have specially adapted kidneys- they’re super sized, like sea otters’. You’ve seen otters?” she prompted hopefully.

Ez’s expression cracked a bit. “Uh, yeah.” The little animal enthusiast nodded.

“And you know that **_how?_ **” Callum demanded defensively. “You all have been dissecting otters?? Autopsied yourselves, AND humans you killed??”

Any headway she had just made sank like a sawed-in-half boat.

She suppressed a shiver at that image.

She avoided the question entirely and plowed ahead. “Of course, for us it’s the iron and the high amount of protein that’s the problem, for otters, theirs are to handle all the salt they drink . . .”

More blank and still vaguely horrified stares.

She should have denied it. Played it off as if she were affronted by the idea. Then they could've been merrily on their way, them none the wiser. She wouldn't have to worry about taking apart the assumptions and inaccuracies behind hurtful pejoratives like 'bloodthirsty.' Heck, she was already going to lose a hand for Ez. That _should_ be enough. Plenty! But **_no._ ** She had to sacrifice and minimize her kinds’ dietary habits, too. She had to tip toe around humans' prejudices.

She took a breath. Swallowed.

And tried to walk it back.

“Look, it’s not strictly necessary . . . “ I mean I can eat uncooked flesh, but you’d probably find that disgusting too, with your sensitive human tummies, “I can eat whatever you eat, ok?” She was internally built a little bit like a bear. Her intestines were a good bit shorter than theirs, but still serviceable. Even domestic dogs, so long raised with agricultural humans, and branched away from wolves, could survive on primarily plant matter. “It’s not a big d-”

No. Screw this. She was going to stick to her turrets!

. . . erm.

She couldn’t finish the sentence. She couldn’t start another one, either. Her mind raced. Dragons ate flesh. Elves could, too. They shared horns _and_ anatomy that allowed them to swiftly chase down prey in a way that clunky humans, most often assisted by horses on a hunt, could not. Humans also had to roast things to keep from getting sick. A sunfire elf or dragon only ever did that to change up taste.

Dragons and elves were simply part of nature. It was just as natural for elves to drink blood as any other sanguivore. It was aggravating for humans to apply their taboos to that behavior. Doubly so, because as she had pointed out, it wasn’t even universally reviled among humans! It had nothing to do with magic rituals, stealing life force, immortality, savage warrior ethos, or any other of their nonsense gossip. Once someone was dead, they weren’t going to use it, and elves never took enough to visibly disfigure anyone anyway! That would be disrespectful to the dead.

Admittedly, with regards to dragons, hushed history recounted around seated gatherings of the elves included the winged terrors of the sky sometimes going completely off the deep end. No doubt humans had passed on those stories as well. The girl mage calling the egg a weapon, while only amusing in its current state, was not so far off the mark when soberly considered. Rayla could only guess at the horrors of how the high mage might attempt to control the beast.

She _wanted_ to press the point.

Gah, she was already keeping one big thing from them!

But. Would they smash that defenseless egg if she made too graphic what she and the reptilian titans were capable of? They were only boys. Both a good deal younger and it seemed, even with Callum’s training, much less acquainted with the hard truths of the world.

Ah. That’s how she would worm her way out of this. The _real_ point.

“Moonshadow elves value life. Even more than other elves,”

She hated to badtalk her slightly more removed kin, but this was essential.

Assassins, from her way of looking at it, spared the excessive gore of armies. Cut off the head of the snake, and the rest of the body will, in a way, live. Scatter the sheep by absence of their shepherd and leave them be. Their near invisibility simply predisposed them to the position, too. Perhaps it was this, having little choice in the gifts they were given and their lethal and exploitable potential which the authoritative dragons pounced on, that led them to looking into other ways of minimizing their impact on life as a whole.

Dragons knew they were so reluctant that the higher status creatures made them magically bind themselves to make sure jobs got done. And she was a prime example of why. She knew of a few elves that were missing hands or arms, unable to make the leap from their culture's general philosophy to the nitty gritty of reality. And yes, some 'whole' elves resented them, but others respected the choice. It depended on the individual. Regardless of feelings, they were always taken care of by the clan. That's why she accepted her own fate with relatively little resistance.

And, she then reflected, she definitely wasn't going to resent Ez for a decision the dragons made.

“Liak I sed before, those bloodletting birds I mentioned? They don’t cause the animahl they’re feeding off of to die. Neither du we. It’s a way not teh kill.” She dug in her bag to show them her tube and sedative blowdarts, which all of them deliberately built up an immunity to. When ‘hunting,’ they would find a big animal and knock it out, take what it could spare, and leave it be.

“We don’t take life when we can avoid it.”

It was the irony of all ironies- being **_more_ **carnivorous than humans allowed them to also be more peaceful in procuring their protein.

Callum still looked suspicious.

But.

Ez finally smiled.


End file.
